Okay, good point -- Moore was stressing that it wasn't just The French. And that, by and large, the International Community and Hollywood don't like Bush.
Somehow I can't help but think that this helps Bush's re-election campaign, though.
The judges may not have been mostly French, but there is still the matter of the 20 minute standing ovation that Moore's film recieved.
Even besides that, I think it's obvious that the French like Moore and hate Bush.. But what I'm really curious about is, why do you (and Moore) feel that this is something that should be covered up? Are you two secretly ashamed of the French or something?
At one time we had "a lot" of respect in the eyes of the world? When was that, immediately after World War 2?
Anti-Americanism did not suddenly appear when Bush was sworn into office. It was simmering for a good long time, and started to boil after the end of the Cold War. That Bush isn't willing to bend over backwards and sacrifice American interests to quell this mindless malice is, frankly, a positive.
> > He won not because of his movie, but because of his message.
> It's probably not even the message on it's own that won it for him. Rather, Disney's unwillingness to distribute the film with that message.
Heck, it's not even because of that. It's because of Moore creating a false scandal, when he knew all along (and he even admits this) that Disney would not distribute his film.
Actually yes, that should have been a consideration. We should have looked at what we'd get out of it vs what the cost would be. In this case we got nothing out of it and we are paying billions each month for the privilege of occupying the place. And to top all that off we provided Al-Qaeda with the best damn recruitment photograph [smh.com.au] in history.
So you have definitive proof that the occupation would have gone smoother if Saddam had, say, gassed another country before being invaded? Or that our Lynndie England would have behaved better if the U.S. have gotten a U.N. mandate?
Do you have any evidence that he was still trying to create them?
Rumor has it that the Iraq Survey Group has found evidence of just that. I'd wait for the final report if I were you.
I'm sorry but we don't go to war on "We think he might be doing this".
Just like we shouldn't have gone to war with Afghanistan before Sept 11th?
But even besides the subject of preemption, there still was the matter that Iraq violated the terms of it's cease-fire with the United States. One of those terms was compliance with U.N. inspectors, but the U.N. did not have the last say. (Just in case they were incompetent or corrupt, which they were.)
And quite frankly who the hell cares what Saddam may or may not have had? I'd have started worrying about it when he had delivery systems to actually get the damn things here.
Delivery systems -- you mean like commercial boats or airplanes? How hard do you think it would be to smuggle destructive devices into the U.S. through Mexico or Canada? Not all that hard, considering the massive amounts of drugs flowing into this country.
"He was in bed with the terrorists" unless you are prepared to say exactly what terrorists he was "in bed" with I've heard about his terrorist links, but... why would he need them anyway? I mean, he ran a whole country. He had many more resources at his disposal than any two-bit group of jihadi yahoos.
I don't know that we're losing but we aren't winning now are we?
As long as we successfully hand over the Iraq to the planned Iraqi government, we won. As it stands, there are no significant military threats to that. Al-Sadr has lost significant ground, and Fallujah has been pacified.
A small group of unpopular "rebels" are not a threat to the upcoming interim government.
Maybe what you are saying would make sense if Saddam actually had WMDs. Claiming someone is hiding something that doesn't exist is just an excuse. Too bad you have been reduced to peddling lies and speculations.
Uh-huh, and the reason that he never complied with U.N. inspectors and got his sanctions lifted was...?
And, oh yeah, who can forget the massive international web of corruption he created with the "Food-for-Oil" program. I guess that was a sure sign that he was going to comply, right?
But hey, I shouldn't waste anymore time trying to convince you. Hell, you still think that they're going to reinstate the draft -- even with the military still turning applicants away!
I can't wait until you and your ilk get smacked upside the head by the final report of the Iraq Survey Group. Word on the grapevine is that they've found tons of evidence of WMD programs (some of which was outlined in their interim report, on the off chance you want look it up and educate yourself.)
Ouch. I'm not even a Mac user myself, but this seems to be rubbing in the fact that Apple computers have very few games. I mean, screenshots of an installer? WTF?!
...because Japan's population has been shrinking. And getting older, on average. And that economic slump isn't helping things.
Until someone comes out with some real polling results, you can't say that the Japanese populace is becoming "disenchanted" with video gaming. There could be many other factors at work.
Look at how well the war in Afganistan went. Rebuilding is going well as far as I know, and the new government regime seems to be fine, and international support is posititve about that war. If it's so hard to win such a war, how did he win so thoroughly in Afganistan?
The press was better. That's really the only thing.
For example, things aren't going all that great in Afghanistan. The national government is having trouble projecting its power, and the new constitution is rather un-Progressive. But did you hear about that? No. Because the press, by and large, don't dare question the Afghanistan war.
Iraq, on the other hand, is a center of attention. So, not only does this create the (false) image that the U.S. is somehow losing in Iraq, but it also serves as a magnet for foreign troublemakers and governments (who don't care about Afghanistan nearly as much.) So the stakes are higher and the press coverage is more negative.
I know its a tired arguement, but there are a lot of not nice governments and we aren't invading their countries.
But how many of those countries do we have a tenuous cease-fire with? Where we're maintaining costly no-fly zones? Where crippling sanctions are in place? Where the provisions of the direct cease-fire are routinely flouted, and never complied with for over a decade?
All of the above were true with Iraq. Sooner or later, that fragile setup had to end. Your problem is that you wanted to wait until we had a direct and immediate threat before taking care of the situation. Well, there are three points about this:
1) The situation on the ground would not have improved, and may have gotten worse. (The War would not have been easier)
2) The situation in the media, on the other hand, would have been much better. I mean, just look how they gloss over the problems in Afghanistan and Kosovo.
3) The President specifically stated, in his 2003 State of the Union speech, that he didn't want to wait until Iraq became an imminent threat. Naturally you can disagree with his decision, but you can't claim that this wasn't the publically stated decision he made.
Question: Would you have complained so loudly if we had invaded Afghanistan before 9/11/01?
1) Allegations that prisoners were tortured to death have not been proven. Also, isolation for extended periods of time is A-OK when it comes to the Geneva Convention.
2) - 4) You can't justify torture, but you can point out hypocrisy and put said torture in perspective.
5) You miss the main point about the torture. It isn't the acts themselves, but A) whether the torture was official policy and B) what are the consequences for the people responsible for said torture.
Frankly, I find it frightening that some people can just assume the worst about the President of the United States.
Arguably, we were doomed to re-invade Iraq since the end of the first Gulf War. Obviously Saddam wasn't interesting in holding up his end of the cease-fire agreement, and the sanctions/no-fly-zones/etc weren't meant to last for all eternity.
No, something about the fact that he created a giant international web of corruption around the Oil-For-Food program kinda tipped me off that Saddam wasn't planning on ever playing nice.
Maybe I'm seeing things, but did you just try to back up your argument with anecdotal evidence from The Simpsons? And then you got modded up as "Insightful"?!
Sir, you are clearly a better Slashdotter than I.
(P.S. - I'd imagine the rats would be sterilized.)
Well, to be fair, lead doesn't ignite and vaporize upon impact like DU normally does. Thus posing an inhalation hazard before it (quickly) settles to the ground.
But if you're near a DU slug when it impacts it's target... well, you probably have bigger problems to worry about.;-)
Who says the GOP complained about Clinton's loosening of the FCC rules? Certain things do have bipartisan support, you know. (Offtopic: Just like when both parties teamed up to shoot down the Kyoto protocol.)
Your link is bullcrap. Utter garbage and junk science, mixed in with an unhealthy dose of hysteria.
Depleted Uranium is just that -- Depleted. Actual research, like that from the World Health Organization, has proven the risk to be minimal:
A recent United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) report giving field measurements taken around selected impact sites in Kosovo (Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) indicates that contamination by DU in the environment was localized to a few tens of metres around impact sites. Contamination by DU dusts of local vegetation and water supplies was found to be extremely low. Thus, the probability of significant exposure to local populations was considered to be very low.
So basically, don't eat the stuff, and don't hang around a battlezone while combat is going on. But that goes for regular lead bullets too.
Also the only one who's done it right with the Nintendo DS?
We're talking about online gameplay here. You know, over the Internet. The DS has Bluetooth and 802.11b wireless connectivity, but they've said nothing about online access so far -- just local multiplayer.
And since when does online gameplay have to be portable to be done "right"?
Who wants a keyboard while you're in the middle of playing a game?
Microsoft and (to a lesser extent) Sony have beaten Nintendo to keyboard-less online gameplay. Xbox Live comes with a headset, and you can't even buy a keyboard for it. A few Sony games are headset compatible too (Socom, etc.)
And optical media is better than solid state?
Are you suddenly forgetting all the developers that left Nintendo over the expense and limitations of the cartridge format?
Don't forget that they're the first company with a system that did full 3D graphics and analog control
A system that does "full 3D graphics"? Suddenly the Playstation and Sega Saturn don't count?
And the Saturn "Nights" controller was the first console controller with an analog stick. (Well, actually the Atari 5200 controller was, but let's not pick nits.)
with force feedback
Force Feedback and a vibration feature are not the same thing. No console currently does real Force Feedback.
(with pixel shaders and anti-aliasing to boot)
Nabbed from a third party, mind you.
Which is still more expensive and more costly than the portable they still sell without a backlight, and still has shorter battery life.
But it's actually usable now, and they had no excuse not to do it earlier, except their own natural slowness and resistance to change. (See the Neo Geo Pocket Color, or Wonderswan Color for examples.)
And did optical storage right with fast load times. Hell, even the Dreamcast has far better load times than the PS2.
Wait, so was Nintendo the first or Sega?
You can't develop everything; every feature has a trade-off. At least when Nintendo brings something to market, they do it right.
Oh, they're quality, and they have a few very innovative people (Miyamoto). But they're not particularly more innovative than their competitors.
You mean Nintendo, the champion of online connectivity? The first one that jumped to optical media? And who could forget how fast they made a color portable with a backlight.
I realize that you have an axe to grind against the Xbox, but it's pretty sad that you're willing to call KOTOR and Ninja Gaiden bad games just to make yourself feel justified.
I mean, check out Game Rankings and look up those two games. See the universally high ratings? Face it -- the game reviewers of the world are right, and you are wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
Okay, good point -- Moore was stressing that it wasn't just The French. And that, by and large, the International Community and Hollywood don't like Bush.
Somehow I can't help but think that this helps Bush's re-election campaign, though.
They're making money by producing it, and saving reputation by not distributing it. The problem here is...?
The judges may not have been mostly French, but there is still the matter of the 20 minute standing ovation that Moore's film recieved.
Even besides that, I think it's obvious that the French like Moore and hate Bush.. But what I'm really curious about is, why do you (and Moore) feel that this is something that should be covered up? Are you two secretly ashamed of the French or something?
At one time we had "a lot" of respect in the eyes of the world? When was that, immediately after World War 2?
Anti-Americanism did not suddenly appear when Bush was sworn into office. It was simmering for a good long time, and started to boil after the end of the Cold War. That Bush isn't willing to bend over backwards and sacrifice American interests to quell this mindless malice is, frankly, a positive.
> > He won not because of his movie, but because of his message.
> It's probably not even the message on it's own that won it for him. Rather, Disney's unwillingness to distribute the film with that message.
Heck, it's not even because of that. It's because of Moore creating a false scandal, when he knew all along (and he even admits this) that Disney would not distribute his film.
Actually yes, that should have been a consideration. We should have looked at what we'd get out of it vs what the cost would be. In this case we got nothing out of it and we are paying billions each month for the privilege of occupying the place. And to top all that off we provided Al-Qaeda with the best damn recruitment photograph [smh.com.au] in history.
So you have definitive proof that the occupation would have gone smoother if Saddam had, say, gassed another country before being invaded? Or that our Lynndie England would have behaved better if the U.S. have gotten a U.N. mandate?
Do you have any evidence that he was still trying to create them?
Rumor has it that the Iraq Survey Group has found evidence of just that. I'd wait for the final report if I were you.
I'm sorry but we don't go to war on "We think he might be doing this".
Just like we shouldn't have gone to war with Afghanistan before Sept 11th?
But even besides the subject of preemption, there still was the matter that Iraq violated the terms of it's cease-fire with the United States. One of those terms was compliance with U.N. inspectors, but the U.N. did not have the last say. (Just in case they were incompetent or corrupt, which they were.)
And quite frankly who the hell cares what Saddam may or may not have had? I'd have started worrying about it when he had delivery systems to actually get the damn things here.
Delivery systems -- you mean like commercial boats or airplanes? How hard do you think it would be to smuggle destructive devices into the U.S. through Mexico or Canada? Not all that hard, considering the massive amounts of drugs flowing into this country.
And we all know that Saddam heartily approved of Al-Qaeda's WTC attacks.
"He was in bed with the terrorists" unless you are prepared to say exactly what terrorists he was "in bed" with
I've heard about his terrorist links, but... why would he need them anyway? I mean, he ran a whole country. He had many more resources at his disposal than any two-bit group of jihadi yahoos.
I don't know that we're losing but we aren't winning now are we?
As long as we successfully hand over the Iraq to the planned Iraqi government, we won. As it stands, there are no significant military threats to that. Al-Sadr has lost significant ground, and Fallujah has been pacified.
A small group of unpopular "rebels" are not a threat to the upcoming interim government.
Maybe what you are saying would make sense if Saddam actually had WMDs. Claiming someone is hiding something that doesn't exist is just an excuse. Too bad you have been reduced to peddling lies and speculations.
Uh-huh, and the reason that he never complied with U.N. inspectors and got his sanctions lifted was...?
And, oh yeah, who can forget the massive international web of corruption he created with the "Food-for-Oil" program. I guess that was a sure sign that he was going to comply, right?
But hey, I shouldn't waste anymore time trying to convince you. Hell, you still think that they're going to reinstate the draft -- even with the military still turning applicants away!
I can't wait until you and your ilk get smacked upside the head by the final report of the Iraq Survey Group. Word on the grapevine is that they've found tons of evidence of WMD programs (some of which was outlined in their interim report, on the off chance you want look it up and educate yourself.)
Since we know that Bush never makes mistakes, anyone who criticizes him must be an irrational liberal, overcome with mindless partisan rancor
And anyone who agrees with anything he's done must be a mindless conservative dittohead, right?
So we shouldn't have invaded Iraq because Al-Qaeda wouldn't like it?
And it was okay that Saddam tried to hide and create WMDs, just as long as he wasn't successful?
And we're losing a guerilla war where we're killing 20 times more of the guerillas than they are of us (at least)?
Also compared to such third-world countries as France and Great Britain.
Ouch. I'm not even a Mac user myself, but this seems to be rubbing in the fact that Apple computers have very few games. I mean, screenshots of an installer? WTF?!
...because Japan's population has been shrinking. And getting older, on average. And that economic slump isn't helping things.
Until someone comes out with some real polling results, you can't say that the Japanese populace is becoming "disenchanted" with video gaming. There could be many other factors at work.
Look at how well the war in Afganistan went. Rebuilding is going well as far as I know, and the new government regime seems to be fine, and international support is posititve about that war. If it's so hard to win such a war, how did he win so thoroughly in Afganistan?
The press was better. That's really the only thing.
For example, things aren't going all that great in Afghanistan. The national government is having trouble projecting its power, and the new constitution is rather un-Progressive. But did you hear about that? No. Because the press, by and large, don't dare question the Afghanistan war.
Iraq, on the other hand, is a center of attention. So, not only does this create the (false) image that the U.S. is somehow losing in Iraq, but it also serves as a magnet for foreign troublemakers and governments (who don't care about Afghanistan nearly as much.) So the stakes are higher and the press coverage is more negative.
I know its a tired arguement, but there are a lot of not nice governments and we aren't invading their countries.
But how many of those countries do we have a tenuous cease-fire with? Where we're maintaining costly no-fly zones? Where crippling sanctions are in place? Where the provisions of the direct cease-fire are routinely flouted, and never complied with for over a decade?
All of the above were true with Iraq. Sooner or later, that fragile setup had to end. Your problem is that you wanted to wait until we had a direct and immediate threat before taking care of the situation. Well, there are three points about this:
1) The situation on the ground would not have improved, and may have gotten worse. (The War would not have been easier)
2) The situation in the media, on the other hand, would have been much better. I mean, just look how they gloss over the problems in Afghanistan and Kosovo.
3) The President specifically stated, in his 2003 State of the Union speech, that he didn't want to wait until Iraq became an imminent threat. Naturally you can disagree with his decision, but you can't claim that this wasn't the publically stated decision he made.
Question: Would you have complained so loudly if we had invaded Afghanistan before 9/11/01?
1) Allegations that prisoners were tortured to death have not been proven. Also, isolation for extended periods of time is A-OK when it comes to the Geneva Convention.
2) - 4) You can't justify torture, but you can point out hypocrisy and put said torture in perspective.
5) You miss the main point about the torture. It isn't the acts themselves, but A) whether the torture was official policy and B) what are the consequences for the people responsible for said torture.
(Answer key:
A) No.
B) Trial and punishment.)
Frankly, I find it frightening that some people can just assume the worst about the President of the United States.
Arguably, we were doomed to re-invade Iraq since the end of the first Gulf War. Obviously Saddam wasn't interesting in holding up his end of the cease-fire agreement, and the sanctions/no-fly-zones/etc weren't meant to last for all eternity.
No, something about the fact that he created a giant international web of corruption around the Oil-For-Food program kinda tipped me off that Saddam wasn't planning on ever playing nice.
Maybe I'm seeing things, but did you just try to back up your argument with anecdotal evidence from The Simpsons? And then you got modded up as "Insightful"?!
Sir, you are clearly a better Slashdotter than I.
(P.S. - I'd imagine the rats would be sterilized.)
Well, to be fair, lead doesn't ignite and vaporize upon impact like DU normally does. Thus posing an inhalation hazard before it (quickly) settles to the ground.
;-)
But if you're near a DU slug when it impacts it's target... well, you probably have bigger problems to worry about.
Who says the GOP complained about Clinton's loosening of the FCC rules? Certain things do have bipartisan support, you know. (Offtopic: Just like when both parties teamed up to shoot down the Kyoto protocol.)
Depleted Uranium is just that -- Depleted . Actual research, like that from the World Health Organization, has proven the risk to be minimal:
So basically, don't eat the stuff, and don't hang around a battlezone while combat is going on. But that goes for regular lead bullets too.
Thanks for making that point so I didn't have to.
Also the only one who's done it right with the Nintendo DS?
We're talking about online gameplay here. You know, over the Internet. The DS has Bluetooth and 802.11b wireless connectivity, but they've said nothing about online access so far -- just local multiplayer.
And since when does online gameplay have to be portable to be done "right"?
Who wants a keyboard while you're in the middle of playing a game?
Microsoft and (to a lesser extent) Sony have beaten Nintendo to keyboard-less online gameplay. Xbox Live comes with a headset, and you can't even buy a keyboard for it. A few Sony games are headset compatible too (Socom, etc.)
And optical media is better than solid state?
Are you suddenly forgetting all the developers that left Nintendo over the expense and limitations of the cartridge format?
Don't forget that they're the first company with a system that did full 3D graphics and analog control
A system that does "full 3D graphics"? Suddenly the Playstation and Sega Saturn don't count?
And the Saturn "Nights" controller was the first console controller with an analog stick. (Well, actually the Atari 5200 controller was, but let's not pick nits.)
with force feedback
Force Feedback and a vibration feature are not the same thing. No console currently does real Force Feedback.
(with pixel shaders and anti-aliasing to boot)
Nabbed from a third party, mind you.
Which is still more expensive and more costly than the portable they still sell without a backlight, and still has shorter battery life.
But it's actually usable now, and they had no excuse not to do it earlier, except their own natural slowness and resistance to change. (See the Neo Geo Pocket Color, or Wonderswan Color for examples.)
And did optical storage right with fast load times. Hell, even the Dreamcast has far better load times than the PS2.
Wait, so was Nintendo the first or Sega?
You can't develop everything; every feature has a trade-off. At least when Nintendo brings something to market, they do it right.
Oh, they're quality, and they have a few very innovative people (Miyamoto). But they're not particularly more innovative than their competitors.
You mean Nintendo, the champion of online connectivity? The first one that jumped to optical media? And who could forget how fast they made a color portable with a backlight.
I realize that you have an axe to grind against the Xbox, but it's pretty sad that you're willing to call KOTOR and Ninja Gaiden bad games just to make yourself feel justified.
I mean, check out Game Rankings and look up those two games. See the universally high ratings? Face it -- the game reviewers of the world are right, and you are wrong.
If you really want this new EA Bond/Goldeneye game to be lousy, I've got some bad news for you:
EA's Bond games have been progressively getting better. (The latter being declared as the best Bond game to date, by some.)